I vote "raw", although you can basically manipulate a chickens diet to make the yolk any color, even blue. My mother used to get eggs from a lady earning house egg money up the road in summer whose chickens were truly free range in a cow pasture on the edge of a pine forest in central Maine. Those egg yolk were the deepest vitelline orange I ever saw or tasted. That is the first time I ever heard that word, and developed a sense memory association with it ever since. My father told me the word, he got it from growing up in Chicago during the Great Depression and my grandparents candles eggs in the evening to bring in extra income.

Back to Maine, my mother was on the "wait list" of customers for this women eggs and she would call in the summer and say we could have eggs for the next four weeks in July or August. It was because her regular customers went on summer vacation and their was a precious surplus. In 25 years we never became first string customers, but those eggs were vitellinious in the summer.

To me "Eggs is eggs." I know that the yolks of chicken eggs are of different shades of yellow and the shells are different in color. I get amused that people, especially in England, tout "free range" eggs and insist shells be brown. Somehow they get a sense of righteousness by having eggs with brown shells. In the USA I never see brown shelled eggs. Macht Nichts. "Eggs is eggs."

"Ein Ei ist ein Ei" Brown eggs vs white ... I remember living in Maine where all we had were white shelled eggs (Germany too) and then there was a whole hoopla in the media about brown shelled eggs being better for you. Then you only saw white shelled eggs at Easter. Now both are found in the stores, and apparently no health benefit either way. Hoopla!

Last edited by eberntson on Fri Mar 01, 2013 1:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

We have indeed seen free range eggs in several states, most often from people who kept chickens as layers. I would not call these free range chickens as they a usually kept in cages, or at least confined to the yards of the house or barn. Free range to me would imply the hens were roaming the woods or pastures.

The backyard chicken coop is on the rise everywhere I go from rural Maine n Virgina, to the cities of Cambridge n Boston, and even the boroughs of NYC. If I had some sun in the backyard of my apartment I'd have chickens.

I think true free range does imply that the chickens have some degree of liberty beyond the coop and the run. However, a barn yard is plenty of liberty for a chicken. The free range eggs I had in the summers were from a flock that roamed a cow pasture by a forest. I have friends in Cape Breton who's flock roams 30 acres, this makes egg collection difficult, but once there is the threat of predation from a fox or coyote the chicken seek the protection of the coop. Plus that is where their free food is.

I once visited Key West where there is a protected species of wild chicken. Scrawny things that apparently produce small eggs. Chicken have helped humanity conquer the planet. So much so I wonder if they will be going to Mars and beyond with us?I.e. Vitelline Mars perhaps.

In Glastonbury, England, people grow chickens that are supposed to be descended without change from the chickens that were grown during the heyday of Glastonbury Abby. Actors at the Abby use them in the portrayal of Abby life. They are some scrawny chickens and they lay small eggs.

Caxton, England's first printer, wrote an essay on eggs. The word Cockney is said to be from cock's egg. Don't tell a Cockney that.

My grandmother had chickens; picking eggs, sometimes helping to wash, candle, and pack them was an important part of visits to her house. So was the annual chicken butchering day, on which all grandchildren were expected to pluck at least one chicken. My same-age cousin and I arranged all of ours in the second washtub with their (elbows) over the edge of the tub, their legs crossed, and their neck stumps turned to each other in conversation. Grandma would roll her eyes, "cuss" good-naturedly in Slavic, and push them back under the water. I've met several others my age who did the same thing, to the bemusement of their more practical-minded parents and grandparents.

Those of you who enjoy chickens might enjoy the web comic Savage Chickens. You can enter whatever topic strikes your fancy into the search engine and there's a good chance he's done a panel on it.

Coincidentally, after the above post, now a neighbor of ours brother is raising layers and we now are getting 2 dozen farm fresh eggs every 2 weeks. I have now learned one should not wash eggs and if I want to store eggs for up to 6 months in the basement one should mix water and "water glass" and submerge the eggs in a crock full of the mix. They taste better then store bought IMHO.